Let the Webbys spice up your Net life

Today’s column is a prescription for anyone who’s fallen into the same old Net routine: the Webbys.

With hundreds of winners in nominees and winners in more than 100 categories, a quick browse through the site for the world’s most prestigious Internet awards is sure to turn up something fun. I go through just a few choice destinations in the column. Here are 10 more.

When the Internet lets you go crazy, you go crazy. This product site looks more like a hyped-up zany fun house. All this for a mint? Heck yes. Step right up! It’s an Altoid Enetertainment Extravaganza. There’s games! Shows! You can even send a singing telegram to a secret admirer. I kid you not.

There are masters projects and there are masters projects. In 2006, three students in Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism wanted to explore the intersections of technology and sexuality and took their work online. Text, video, graphics and more accompany their project, which tackles virtual dating, the chemistry of attraction and how developments in genetic engineering could give a whole new meaning to “making babies.”

You heard ‘em. This art blog scours the art world for some of techiest, most innovative ideas that are being put to work. It’s where art meets design — and it’s a neat looking place this blog does a great job of describing in all its glory.

As haunting as it is impactful, this site does more than tell — it shows. Bringing statistics to life with interactive design, it literally illuminates the problem of homelessness, neglect and abuse among children in the Netherlands. Make a few sites for the problems facing Americans here at home, and you might see a real movement.

Shopping sites are a hassle to browse. It’s hard to tell which are genuinely in your hand and which are spam sites or branded clearinghouses whose roads all lead to the same products. With a name as simple as Gifts.com, one might be suspicious. But the site is something of a dream come true, especially when you’re utterly clueless about what to get that special someone on that special day. Search by interest, by age –even by personality — and be linked to hundreds of products that might be just perfect.

You can win your clients. Or you can seduce them. This site almost goes too far — but ultimately it’s just too clever. From eye contact to opening lines, back to their place and finally, “climax,” the folks at Mindflood know how to treat their customers right — at least online.

Jonathan YuenCategories won: Best use of animation or motion graphics, Best visual design — aesthetic, Personal site

If a potential employer of Mr. Yuen isn’t automatically won over by the designer’s site, someone else needs to take care of hiring. I love how the site opens and closes different sections on a mouse click, expanding in directions you wouldn’t expect, and always moving — but not in a flashy, distracting way. This is clean yet full Net design at its finest. Go get ‘em, Mr. Yuen.

Good question. This online magazine is doing the research and coming up with some intriguing answers. With discussion forums, insightful articles, a well designed structure and easily downloadable videos and podcasts, WIE goes deep and invites you for the ride.

When you need to get a jam going, this is where you want to go. Visual, simple, obviously musical, Verizon’s beat boxer puts up beatbox stars whose tongue twisting beats you can mix up however you like. Next stop, the club.

No, it’s not fair and balanced. But it does politics, and it does it well. Truthdig tracks the left’s issues like a digital hawk, swooping down to capture only tasty news morsels — not to mention a few scandal-plagued officials.